Geologists aboard the scientific ocean drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution embarked in May 2013 on a research expedition studying glaciers to learn how Earth's geologic processes relate to the planet's climate history. Led by co-chief scientists John Jaeger of the University of Florida and Sean Gulick of the University of Texas at Austin, the international team of researchers collected sediments from five locations in the Gulf of Alaska. Read more in this news release.
Credit: John Jaeger

The Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) is a Science and Technology Center (STC) established by NSF in 2005 with the mission of developing new technologies and computer models to measure and predict the response of sea level change to the mass balance of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. See more in this Science Nation video.
Credit: Science Nation, National Science Foundation

A recent study funded by NSF finds that the western part of the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought. The temperature record from Byrd Station, an unmanned scientific outpost in the center of the ice sheet, demonstrates a marked increase of 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4 degrees Celsius) in average annual temperature since 1958. That is three times faster than the average temperature rise around the globe. Read more in this news release.
Credit: Ohio State University

The Division of Polar Programs of the Directorate for Geosciences manages and initiates NSF funding for basic research and its operational support in the Arctic and the Antarctic. The funds are provided as NSF grants to institutions (mainly U.S. universities), whose scientists perform the research at the institutions or in a polar region, and as cooperative agreements or contracts to support organizations including contractors and the U.S. military.

While 99 percent of Earth's land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world's glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, according to a recent study.

Melting over the Greenland ice sheet shattered the seasonal record on August 8, 2012--a full four weeks before the close of the melting season. The melting season in Greenland usually lasts from June--when the first puddles of meltwater appear--to early September, when temperatures cool.

September 9, 2013

Mathematician uses skills to study Greenland's retreating glaciers

New information about glacier melting will help fine tune climate models and improve predictions for sea level rise

Many outlet glaciers in Greenland feed ice from the land into fjords, where discharge of icebergs and melting of the glaciers by warmer ocean waters contribute to rising sea levels.

David Holland of New York University (NYU) studies what happens in the fjord when ice meets water--how the dynamics at the margin between ice and sea are changing, and what those changes could mean in the future for global sea level rise.

In recent years, the rate of ice flow from the land to the water has accelerated in some glaciers, and the melting of the ice in the fjords has also increased. The purpose of this project is to improve the understanding of the role of the ocean in these fast, dynamical changes at the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

The glaciers feeding into two fjords, Jakobshavn on Greenlandís west coast and Helheim on the east coast, have accelerated significantly in recent years. Holland and his team have been making oceanographic and meteorological observations in these fjords. These observations are being used to develop and validate a coupled model of the ocean and ice sheet that will enable improved understanding of processes that contribute to sea level rise.

The research in this episode was supported by NSF award #0806393, Observations and Modeling of Ocean--Ice Sheet Interaction in Jakobshavn and Helheim Ice Fjords, Greenland.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations presented in this material are only those of the presenter grantee/researcher, author, or agency employee; and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.